Death on the Baltic

An excerpt from a personal look at the 'Cap Arcona' bombing which killed thousands of Holocaust survivors.

By JEREMY ELIAS
Cap Arcona (photo credit: Courtesy)
Cap Arcona
(photo credit: Courtesy)
On May 3, 1945, thousands of prisoners were loaded onto ships in Lübeck Bay, off the northern coast of Germany. They had endured years of Nazi brutality and were within hours of Allied liberation and the end of a seemingly endless hell. Before that hour could arrive, more than 7,000 would be dead in one of the greatest maritime disasters of World War II. My grandfather was there.
I've always known my grandfather's story. I can't remember a particular time when he first sat me down from beginning to end. So it's as if I was born with a vague understanding of what happened, and the rest of my life was for filling in the details. I'm constantly filling in the details. And I'll always be thankful for a grandfather who's willing to let me.
In 1941, at 15, Henry Bawnik was rounded up on the streets of the Lodz ghetto. He would be leaving his family, and the one place he knew. Scared and anxious, he looked around the group of unfortunate Jews. Through the panicked men, and their barking tormentors, he saw David, an older neighborhood friend he'd always looked up to. David was the one familiar face in the newly assembled group. Thank God for David, a protector, my grandfather thought.
David was beaten to death within hours. This was an unfamiliar world, and it wouldn't be a kind one.
From his year in the Lodz ghetto, and some four years in the camps, there are countless stories. They are painted with senseless violence and inconceivable brutality. They are the kind that come from any victim who bears witness to the madness of men and lives with the burden and courage to speak about it.
But the most prominent theme in all my grandfather's accounts isn't murder and destruction - it is luck. And never was luck more imminent than that afternoon on the Baltic 65 years ago.
In January 1945, as the Allies drew closer, my grandfather leftFürstengrube, a subcamp of Auschwitz, for Gleiwitz. It was the firstleg of a death march north, continuously missing liberation by days andsometimes hours. In Gleiwitz, they boarded cattle cars. With the lackof food, space and sanitation, the cars became boxes for rottingcorpses, starved and diseased. My grandfather and other prisoners beganusing these corpses as furniture; a couch, a mattress. Death had been adaily occurrence. It wasn't a tragedy but an accepted inevitability.One day he too would be a couch or a mattress, and that wasjustification enough.
After 10 days in the cattle cars, they arrived at Dora-Mittelbau. Eachliving prisoner dragged a dead body to a growing pile of skeletons. Theindistinguishable men and women, with sunken cheeks and hollowed eyes,were thrown upon each other, a tangled mountain of death. The bodieswere burned that night.
In April, the Allies again drew closer, and once again my grandfatherwas forced to flee an approaching liberation. The Germans were runningout of land. Soon there would be repercussions, and a light would shineon years of horror. For that they were not prepared, so they continuedto march.
Max Schmidt, a young SS officer and camp commander, loaded mygrandfather and the 540 other prisoners onto barges up the Elbe River.With no camps left, he would take them to his family's estate inAhrensbök, Germany.
The area of northern Germany was becoming livelier. British bombersfilled the sky as the prisoners lined up to be counted. Schmidt leanedback with his hands on his hips, slowly dipping his head to the sky."Ich sehe schwarz," he quietly said. "I see black." But even Schmidtcould not foresee the darkness to come.
The article by Jeremy Elias will appear in this Friday's Magazine.